Ed Byrne - transcript of Hey Hey Its Saturday Appearance

I was on this show last year I remember, the same episode as John Farnham. I thought oooh, I'm in showbiz now I thought to myself, great...but he was wearing the same jacket as me and it was very embarassing...so I thought, I'm not takin' any chances this year, just in case you were wondering why I was wearing my mothers curtins...It's lovely to be back, it's good to be playing the comedy festival, particularly cause I do a lot of festivals like fringe festivals and arts festivals and doing a comedy festival means there's just comedy...which means there's a distinct lack of jugglers, which makes me very pleased, cause if there's one thing I hate, it's a juggler.

Honest to god, I used to live with a juggler, and I'd never do that again. I'd rather have all my teeth filled and be forced to, live on a diet of tinfoil before I'd llive with another juggler, because they're so...look, honest to god, you do the Edingburgh festival, or the Adelaide Festival, there's a juggler on every damn corner, honestly, and always looking so smug that they can do the most useless task in the world. You just feel like saying to them, look mate, if you want to keep three things off the ground, put them on a shelf. It's a useless thing to be able to do. The only good things about jugglers is that they don't have their hands free, so you can just pop one in (punch) and, you can throw things at them and you think that they're just joing in and it's brilliant.

Although, I don't want to sound like I'm violent. Jugglers are the only kind of of people who get me goin like that. The one thing I like about Australia is that your not very violent people, you're very laid back, cause I hate violence, I detest violence. I detest violence, basically cause I'm really crap at it. I'm certain I'd have a different view if I was good at it, but actually I'm terrible at fightin' I am. I know you're all looking at me thinkin, nonsense Ed, you look like you could really mix it, but no, I am awful at it. I go to pieces as soon as anybody starts a fight with me. Like if somebody says to me, "Have you got a problem?", I go,"Yeah, you're gonna beat me up".

I call that a problem yeah, cause I'm lousy at it. I am, I'm terrible...and the thing is that blokes come up with some choice lines when they start fights don't they? Lads come up with some brilliant lines. Back home we have a classic one, which is, "You're going home in an ambulance"....ooooh, ahhh....gives me a chill. You're going home in the back of an ambulance, pal. Cause you always get dead friendly when you start a fight dontcha? Sorta like, do you want your head kicked in....mate? Thanks. John. But, I particularly like that ambulance chant. The yobs will chant it at each other...you know, it's just like your divvy van chant.

They'd be like, "You're going home in the back of an ambulance", and it's so stupid cause you don't go home in the back of an ambulance, you go to HOSPITAL. No, I'm right on this, I've done the research, trust me. You're thinkin taxis mate, yeah, nice to help you out there. When was the last time you saw an ambulance pull up for a heart attack victim and go, "Where do you live? Hop in!?"..."Hospital? People die in there mate! You want to go home! Put your feet up after a shock like that!". They should change that chat to something more appropriate...something like..."You're going to hospital in the back of an ambulance....and then, you're goin home...a week later...get a lift from your dad or somethin...wouldn't be as catchy, but it would be factual you know. I actually remember, I did that joke before at a gig back in England, a gig in Luton, right and this guy, he put up his hand...a dead polite heckler, don't you like them...put up his hand out of nowhere...out of his sleeve...put up his hand, and he went , "...and going back to hospital a week later an out patient. You might think that's funny, but the whole audience just went, "Whaaat???" Milk that mad cow, milk it! I love people like that.